42
Sarah, your mother’s heart’s sore for ye this day,” She dabbed her eyes
with her black cotton gloves and walked slowly towards the church coach-
house. the broad road before the coach-house was empty now, and when she
looked into the Echlin’s box in the stable two or three sparrows were
quarreling on the floor of it. They hae forgotten me' she said, sitting
down on the bench that ran along the wall. After a little while she
arose and set out on the homeward road.
Hamilton, coming from the byre, saw the trap sitting in the close,
its shafts in the air. An uneasy feeling made him hasten into the house,
the hands of the clock pointed to twenty minutes past one. lie hurried
out to the stable and pushed open the ton-door. Both hors-s stood in
their stalls, "Hell roast his soul" he muttered, 'he’s forgotten the
ould woman." He went to the middle of the close and putting his hands
to his mouth hallooed on his brother’s name. He paused, expectant, as
his shout rang over the empty fields. A fe birds rose from the ridge
of the stable and whirred away. Then he called on grab's name and as
he listened he thought he heard a faint distant sound of laughter. He
led out a horse, pulling cruelly on its mouth, and yoked it, singlehanded,
in the trap.
About two miles along the road he came on Martha seated on the ditch.
He had to dismount and holdover to the trap. hen 3he left the church
she had vowed to herself that she would refuse to ride with them if they
came to meet her. But now all her pride was gene; she had lost a glove
somewhere and her fine buttoned boots, of which she was so proud, were
coated with mud. t er face was drawn with weariness, and she had to
press her lips together to keep from bursting outright into tears of
misery and loneliness.
